The spring of 2003 may have been the high point of the American Empire. The very next year, the fiasco of the Iraq invasion prompted the self-described "neoliberal" Michael Lind to complain on the pages of Financial Times that Bush the Lesser’s bumbling ways have ruined imperialism:

"Neoliberalism, like neoconservatism, depended on the mystique of American power… Without US forces doing the heavy lifting in UN or Nato interventions, the ambitious neoliberal strategy of muscular internationalism becomes impossible."

To counter the looming specter of long defeat, the Empire resorted to bravado and perception management. The "surge" supposedly "won" the war in Iraq, which was quickly forgotten as the PR focus shifted to Afghanistan. Resistance to Imperial will in places like Serbia was publicly crushed, to discourage others; this was then touted as an important victory, so as to impress both foreign clients and the people at home.

Rulers of the Empire were confident they could deal with the loss of moral and "mythic authority" (as Michael Vlahos put it in 2007), because these were matters confined to the realm of perception. Eventually, however, the Empire ran out of money. The housing bubble collapse in 2008, and the financial crisis that followed, were only the beginning of a major depression. Now even the dedicated imperial propagandists, such as the New York Times’ Thomas Friedman, are tolling the death knell of Pax Americana.

No matter what sort of brave face Emperor Obama and his generals try to present – or not – the structural problem facing the Empire can’t be fixed with sound bites and promises of Hope and Change.

Without a Hegemon

It would be a safe assumption that proponents and advocates of Empire haven’t actually given up, but rather consider this a passing phase. After all, doesn’t the world hunger for America? Isn’t America a benevolent empire, protecting human rights, punishing the evildoers and promoting democracy? Doesn’t the world need a hyperpower to keep everyone in line?

Well, no. The harder the Empire stomped on the world, the fewer people actually called for the boot. That is only logical. Those who proclaim to love continued American hegemony are Imperial clients who dread the day they may have to fend for themselves.

Nor has America ever been a benevolent empire. Such a thing cannot exist, even in theory. In practice, it has made a mockery of everything it claims to champion, from human rights to democracy and law.

Yet it is the third belief that will cause most trouble. As Engelhardt describes:

"We’ve just gotten way too used to the idea that the United States must be the planet’s preeminent nation, the global hegemon, the sole superpower, numero uno. We’ve convinced ourselves that neither we nor the world can exist without our special management."

A world in which America’s disappearance results in chaos and warfare certainly makes a good backdrop of implausible Australian techno-thrillers, but will it really come to that? Unlikely. The world has carried on quite nicely without global powers for most of history, though. Global imperialism is a late XIX century phenomenon, and its direct result was the XX century bloodbath.

Fears of Russia or China rising as the new global empire are mostly projections by those who cannot imagine the world without a hegemon. There is nothing in Chinese history or culture that would provide a platform for global dominance. Likewise, it wasn’t Russia that sought global influence, but the Soviet Union, driven by the universal ideology of Communism. But Communism is gone, ruined by the demonstrable failure of its concept of society, which treated people as things. Russians and the Chinese have experienced its horrors first-hand. Once bitten, twice shy.

One reason there is no new hegemon lurking below the horizon may be the manifest failure of the American Empire to run the world. If America — the wealthiest society in recorded history, with a military no one could defeat head-on — can fail as a hegemon, then perhaps the entire project is a futile boondoggle to begin with. Autocracy just doesn’t scale well. Humanity resists central control.

Blowback

Getting rid of something so hypocritical, that doesn’t work, cannot work, and consumes vast amounts of lives and treasure, is surely a good thing. However, there will certainly be blowback, as arrangements around the world set up and maintained by American force and funds become unsustainable. Empire’s clients may decide to use whatever power they have to secure their position, while their enemies may want to "renegotiate" the bargains the Empire forced them to accept at gunpoint. Tragic as these events may be — and they will involve loss of life and property, as all wars do — one should resist the temptation to blame them on Empire’s retreat, when Empire’s meddling to begin with is far more culpable.

What happened to the former Yugoslavia is just one example. Instead of negotiating a peaceful divorce, leaders of many separatist groups enlisted outside support — from Berlin, or Washington — hoping that someone else would fight their wars. This has subsequently happened elsewhere as well. The Empire, of course, pursued its own agenda while doing so; as a result, the "peace" in the Balkans is anything but. And that is just one corner of the world where Imperial meddling has influenced the destinies of millions.

Redemption

Other questions remain. What will happen to the militant jihad movements, which went global thanks to the Empire? What regional powers may rise, to fill at least some of the vacuum left by Empire’s exit? Last, but not least, how will America itself handle the loss of empire? For too long, America has been an empire in fact, if not in name. The Republic has long since passed out of living memory; it even possible to resurrect it?

The founders patterned the American Republic on ancient Rome. Like Rome, it succumbed to the imperial temptation. Those that believe in determinism will read Gibbon for clues as to what happens next. But history doesn’t have to repeat itself. America was originally founded on that argument. It may yet find redemption in proving it right.

Wow! That poll has really got Americans thinking! No more omnipotent, invincible and eternal American Empire! No more "EU in America's pocket"! No more "Reds still hiding under the beds" in Russia! Of course, how long it will take Empire/Israel Lobby propagandists to recover their cool is another matter! Then, no doubt, we'll be told that balckbirds are really white and the only reason why we think they're black is because we're looking at them from the wrong perspective!

Robert Lind

American Empire is not collapsing, it's just Nebojsa Malic's wishful thinking. It is still alive and well, but we can say it is undergoing a process of profound transformation. The new, transformed Empire may in the future look very differently from what we now associate as the essence of American Empire and, indeed, it could induce many people to think that the American Empire is no more.

But whatever happens, with or without the American Empire, Kosova stays, Kosova is eternal. Nobody in the world cares about Serbia, its petty Balkanic grievances, its (allegedly) "sad history", its mythomania (about Kosovo, about the Second World War etc), its pompous and self-righteous whining over (alleged) "injustice" they have been suffering (the how-dare-you-do-this-to-us-who-were-once-your-allies syndrome) etc. Serbs will have to get used to the fact they are irrelevant in the larger scheme of world history. They still don't seem to have accepted this hard fact.

The Serbs do not have to be relevant to world history. The Serbs fight their own battles and write their history on their own.

It is, on the contrary, those who have the Empire fight their wars that must stay relevant to it. And to tremble to see the global empire retreat.

Alberto

Mr. Lind, before using adjectives such as petty and pompous to refer to a country that was on the map when the US was just a pebble on the road, you should study a bit of American history. Your country reminds me of the big brute relative who struck it rich and now that he is rich shows his stupidity with a toothless grin.

Great article from Malic. I doubt America will break the trend of all Empires and not Fall.

Rasputin

Hey, "Robert Lind", Kosovo would not be Kosova if the Americans didn't pressure the Russians to threaten to turn off the gas. What are you going to do when Big Daddy's not around?

Peter RV

Next world empire might be Muslim. Thanks to the past ,decrepit now, American , which has awaken the sleeping giant of one billion and three hundred million religious people. If one in thousand of these ( an optimistic estimate) is fanatic, we shall have , a cool -one million and three hundred thousand al Qaeda fighters facing us. Good luck to Janet Napolitano and to who ever is in that position, in Israel.
Just as when Hitler went out to 'liberate Europe of of communism ', he brought it into the heart of Europe for seventy years.
In any warfare, it is known that after a failed offensive , comes inevitably a counter-offensive.
(In Physics this wisdom is known under the name of law of Action- Reaction, Newton's third)
The only way to avoid the catastrophy is to disengage a.s.a.p.

liveload

Disengaging asap isn't necessarily the panacea some may think it to be. Malic touches on this in the last two sections. It simply cannot be accomplished without upending the status quo. That almost never happens without bloodshed. Technological developments, especially in energy, have caused massive population growth in the human species. Instant global communications is unprecedented in human history and has had a massive impact. The ultimate solution lies in spreading out beyond this planet. We as a species are headed towards the era when available resources and environment can no longer sustain the rapidly expanding population. Instead of putting a serious effort towards the ultimate solution, we spend most of our time killing each other over anything that's left to take. We slaughter each other for a few crumbs compared to the kinds of resources that are available in our own solar system by comparison. Take the top ten "defense" budgets in the world and put them towards the ultimate solution. Image what we could accomplish in a century's time.

Bianca

While I wholeheartedly believe that the resources spent wisely, not on military, would bring about prosperity, I do not see the need to search for another planet. The problem we have is that some countries are ruled by elites (inherited, elected or unappologetic thugs) that look around for what is to grab from somebody else to make their own ilk wealthier. Otherwise, there is PLENTY of resources on this earth to last for ever. We have inefficient cities, inefficient transport, earth-polluting industries. None of that is really necessary. Crooks are always driven to power, as that is the only skill they have. They use politicians, to do their bidding. I say drop elections, and go with only professional management of all functions of society, and hire them like for any other job. Even from other countries. Give them fabulous income, but if they take one penny from someone, off they go. All decisions public, all diplomacy public. On decisions of large interest — let the referendum decide. This way, one can cut out 80% of wastefull government "work", and give people something more productive to do!

Dear idealist. I promise you, referenda will never yield the results you wish. Democracy is a pipe's dream. Otherwise, I agree with you, this planet provides with way enough resources to sustain mankind before mankind finally realises that those resources should be used with a sense of measure.

Obviously, I have a problem these days. I meant of course "pipe dream" not "pipe's dream".

Maid Marian

FTA: "Those who proclaim to love continued American hegemony are Imperial clients who dread the day they may have to fend for themselves."

Could he be talking about what the French call that SLC in the ME?

FTA: "But Communism is gone, ruined by the demonstrable failure of its concept of society, WHICH TREATED PEOPLE AS THINGS [emphasis mine]."

Why should anyone be surprised that people are treated as things when the ruling claque regards itself as the "vanguard elite" or, iow, a "chosen people?" People, societies and cultures are not fungible. The belief in their own choseness by the people now feveredly dreaming of and treasonously working for a new world order led by America will inevitably lead to the downfall of American hegemony but, please God, not the American republic.

Our "best" and "brightest" learned almost nothing from the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Anti war

" Our "best and "brightest" learned nothing from the collapse of the Soviet Union"
Very true, but allow me to add that they do not seem to have learned any thing from Vietnam or the many times" Mission Accomplished' iRAQ'S FOOLISHNES. They still believe that we have been victorious in Iraq. Simply astonishing.

Karl

You could not be more wrong. Kosovo is anyhing but American fabrication. Kosovo is a sacred place, the land of great knights, of Dushan and Lazar. Kosovo is Serbia. Not an inch of it is American.

davidgrayling

America lost the plot in Vietnam. Though it had its butt kicked, it didn't learn anything. It went off and made its army even bigger as if that would ensure victory next time. It can't work out that the world has changed and it's no longer big armies fighting big armies.

America, driven by greed, like the Twin Towers is falling. It may be in slow motion, but it's falling. And it won't be missed, not for a second.

Robert Lind

Sorry, I was just trolling all the time, trying to provoke your angry reactions, for fun. In fact, I don't care about either Serbia or Kosovo or anything related to it. Bye.

MvGuy

Some social "problems" prevent you to deign to sober analysis of Malik's thesis??

zemoralist

Malic: "Communism is gone, ruined by the demonstrable failure of its concept of society". USSR did not fall apart because of "the failure of its concept" but because of a grotesque and insane investment the US made to have USSR destroyed, and now the chicken are coming home to roost, as it is not just the empire that is failing, it is the US and its concept of society (fake democracy).

Robert Lind

I pissed you off, nyanyanyanyanyanya…

Hrebeljanovic

Bock, bock, bock, begowwwk.

MvGuy

What you really did was show us how infantile you can be… ComeOn, You must be able to do better !

Nick Mulgrave

How very American of you. Pissing people off and then cutting and running.
Just like the American empire, you really don't stand for anything at all do you. You are nothing more than a blip on a webpage, just like the American century will be a footnote in pages of world history. Run along now, just like the empire you wont be missed at all.

Ok, I didn't see Robert Lind's post lower when I replied to Alberto. I commented on a previous article by Mr Malic, with same advice as in my reply, donot to answer his posts because he is a troll. Now my fellow Serbs, what can be done with you?

Doesn't matter if he is who he claims he is, he is a troll, and answering a troll is feeding a troll. If you don't answer him, you don't feed him. He's left hungry and eventually, if nobody feeds him, he'll starve.So don't answer him. Starve him. Ok?

And if you feel tempted to answer a troll like him, go to myspace.com/vojkanmilosavljevic, lower the volume, click on the 3rd piece and relax. I've been a correspondent of SRNA in Paris, I know a few things about what happened, and I had to deal with trolls. Just let it go.

Hrebeljanovic

Not OK. You are inexperienced and don't know what you are talking about. Get off your high horse, you are starting to bore.

Because if you're not, using that nickname is a BLASPHEMY. I'm using my real name. Ever been in Studenica? I have. I'd never have the idea to call myself Stefan Nemanja. You should go read his testament turbo-folk Serb. I'm tired of being put to shame by people like you.

Now back to the article. Nebojsa, I don't share your optimism. You're a historian, you know how long the Roman Empire lasted. Things may run faster nowadays but I don't think that we'll see in our lifetime the end of the American one. As a matter of fact, I think that there's a lot more bloodshed to come. The problem is that the official American elite, cultural and political, wholeheartedly supports American global hegemony, they really see themselves as the "shining beacon on the hill'. The folks here at Antiwar and Glenn Greenwald really are exceptions.

To complete my reasoning… Some years ago, I crossed in Paris an insanely beautiful and charismatic young woman and the few seconds it lasted were enough to get me crazy in love. This year, I found out that she was an Ameican actress and a famous one. And I found out that people perceived her as a paragon of virtue because they only see what's presented to them. Pheromones momenatrily blurred my vision. You don't imagine how many people have an idealistic perception of the USA. American elite + foreign worshippers, we won't see the end of the empire any time soon.

I'm surprised to have that comment got pluses. My assertion is based on a strong resemblance between the two, but I'm not really sure they're the same.
And there's a 'woman' that is both on the entry of a harbour in Paris and on the entry of a harbour in New York so I actually thought it was a neat metaphor about the discrepancy between what we perceive and what is true. I know, it's a bit weird reasoning. I don't know if I formulated right so it be correctly understood.

B..

@ All participants
Please, stop bothering yourselves with this ugly Hitlerite gnome "Robert Lind". The guy is OPENLY endorsing the genocidal policies of German Nazis and Croatian Ustashas in WW2, over at he AltRight (check his posts there, a total, complete, neo-Nazi moron, who still cannot grasp that his beloved "Aryans" got their asses kicked by us "sub-humans")

Robert Lind

Yes, of course. Sieg heil! Zip file!

B..

over at he AltRight

should read

over at the AltRight

Suvorov

"Robert Lind",

You actually did make one good point. Namely, that American Empire is as eternal as "Kosova".
They are indeed likely to collapse approximately at the same time, for the latter is nothing more than an artificial creation of the former that is not sustainable on itself.

pablo

I think Malic is a great writer, but sometimes he is too biased when writing about the Balkans (just as most people who write about that subject, but who are much more biased to the other side), when he writes about something else, like in this article, he is actually better imho.

Robert Lind

Uh, we're sooo touchy.

Ustasha

Drumovi će se zaželjeti srbalja, a srbalja neće biti!

Hehehehehe….

Za dom i poglavnika spremni!

Hrebeljanovic

At first I wanted to ask moderators to remove this comment, but then I thought that it's better for everyone to see what kind of people some Croats are. In loose translation this message means:

"There wont be any more Serbs on Earth!

hehehehe…

Doctor Mengele we love you, Zig Heil!"

Hrebeljanovic

At first I wanted to ask moderators to remove this comment, but then I thought that it's better for everyone to see what kind of people some Croats are. In loose translation this message means:

Same day that the US Empire starts loosing its power and clout – "Albanian" KosovA will revert to the original state of Serbian KosovO. Same goes for Croatia at the time of German decline (along with Vatican) – the Muslim expansion in EU spells a certain end to Vatican's power. May we all live just another few years to see that day.

Ustasha

Just dream, Serb boy. The reality is the exact opposite of your wishes or wild projections. Sandzak is boiling and it may soon become de facto autonomous. Hungarians will soo demand their parts of Vojvodina back.

Ustasha

Btw, the above quote is by the hero named Viktor Gutic. ("Drumovi će poželjeti srbalja, a srbalja više neće biti")

Nebojsa Malic left his home in Bosnia after the Dayton Accords and currently resides in the United States. During the Bosnian War he had exposure to diplomatic and media affairs in Sarajevo. As a historian who specializes in international relations and the Balkans, Malic has written numerous essays on the Kosovo War, Bosnia, and Serbian politics. His exclusive column for Antiwar.com debuted in November 2000.